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Meet the Canadian women heading south to help Hillary metroNEWS

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Chef Michael Blackie cooking during a demonstration at “Baconpalooza.” CONTRIBUTED

Several too many ALCOHOL

Nearly 40% binge drink in Ottawa, new study suggests Ryan Tumilty

Metro | Ottawa

FROM FARM TO FORK Foodie paradise heating up at agriculture and food museum metroNEWS

Nearly 40 per cent of Ottawa residents are binge drinking at least once a year, according to a new survey from the city’s public health department. The comprehensive view of drinking in the capital will go to a city’s committee Thursday and it documents everything from emergency room visits to impaired driving and long-term health costs. Nancy Langdon, a supervisor with Ottawa Public Health, said they did the study because they know there are serious public health issues related to alcohol, but they were also overwhelmed

by personal stories. She said an online survey on alcohol they commissioned was inundated with responses. “We thought maybe we will get lucky and get 300 responses, but we got over 2,000,” she said. According to the survey, 83 per cent of Ottawans drink alcohol occasionally. The stats on binge drinking, which means five or more drinks in a sitting for a man or four or more for a woman, showed 39 per cent of people had done that in the last year. About half of the people who binge drink report doing it once a month. Langdon said they don’t have any concrete suggestions yet on what to do in response and want to have a conversation with the community. She said with the Ontario government increasing places where alcohol can be sold, it’s something to keep an eye on. “When you increase availability you will get more people drinking.”

Your essential daily news

Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to stay with Bank of England until 2019.

Taking the plunge: love story inspires new name Blossom Park

Romantic gesture means it’s officially Proposal Pond It was oh so cold. Temperatures had plummeted to -20C, and the snow blanketing the frozen pond at Fawn Meadows Park in the Blossom Park community was about a foot deep. But warmed by his plan to surprise Andrea, his then girlfriend of 14 months, with a wintertime marriage proposal on Jan. 10, 2015, Greg Lister headed off to the naturalized stormwater pond. There, he used a shovel to scoop out the words to his marriage proposal: “Andrea will you be my ∞?” (The sideways figure eight is known as a mathematical infinity symbol.) Three hours later, Lister headed home to wait for Andrea who was coming over to enjoy his signature fettuccine alfredo dinner. “We love the outdoors. I love snow, in particular,” said Lister. “I was looking for some way of doing my proposal with snow involved.” When Andrea arrived, he asked if she wanted to go outside for a breath of fresh air. “She was kind of hesitant,” he recalled. But she agreed, saying “Let’s get this over with.” They still joke about that today. “She says, when we go for walks, ‘Let’s get this over with. Maybe something will happen,’” Lister said with a laugh. They bundled up and headed for the park. As they walked, she

Blossom Park East resident Greg Lister is hoping the city will approve an application to have the pond at his neighbourhood’s Fawn Meadows Park named Proposal Pond in memory of the marriage proposal he wrote in the snow topping the ice for his then girlfriend Andrea. contributed A couple shares a private moment following a marriage proposal. Courtesy Annemarie Grudën didn’t immediately notice in the gathering darkness the Xs and Os he had written in the snow along the path.

I think it’s very sweet. Coun. Diane Deans

Farther down in the glow of a streetlight Andrea spotted a happy face in the snow and giggled. They went into the park

and he steered her towards the pond where they had enjoyed a skate together just the week before. Andrea noticed the lettering in the snow and stopped for a closer look. Lister got out his powerful headlamp, and his girlfriend then spotted the infinity symbol before she began reading the words aloud. “I then got down on my knee,” said Lister. He pulled out the engagement ring they had picked out together about a month before. Andrea didn’t know he’d bought it not long after they went window-shopping.

“She was very taken aback, just so overjoyed by the whole way that it unfolded. She was very surprised,” Lister said of his then new fiancée, whom he first met in 2013 while taking a fitness class she taught. “She said yes really quick.” This past April, six months after the couple married on Oct. 24, 2015 at Carleton Memorial United Church in Nepean, Lister wrote to Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans to share his story, asking if he could put up a sign at Fawn Meadows Park naming the body of water, Proposal Pond.

Through his research, he learned that while the park had a name, the pond did not. It was the first time Deans received such a request, with such a love story attached. Deans submitted a naming application on Lister’s behalf and the request was approved by the commemorative naming policy committee on Oct. 19. “I think it’s very sweet and it’s a love story and who doesn’t like a good love story?” she said of the Lister couple’s engagement. “Who doesn’t want a happy ending?” Erin McCracken / Metroland Media

planning

Group unhappy with makeup of advisory panel Adam Kveton

For Metro | Ottawa A new provincial bill is requiring cities like Ottawa to create planning advisory committees in an effort to encourage greater public engagement. But some people say the city is

looking at filling the committee with the same people the committee is meant to advise — the mayor, councillors and even the general manager of planning. That leaves just two seats for citizens on the proposed sixperson committee, which would also only meet once a year. “We are disappointed,” said David Jeanes, president and

chair of the board of Heritage Ottawa. “That’s a pretty limited citizen engagement.” The recommendation for the board’s structure, put together by administration and council, asks that Mayor Jim Watson (as ex officio), Coun. Jan Harder (chair of the Planning Committee), Coun. Scott Moffatt (chair of the Agriculture and Rural Af-

fairs Committee) and the city’s general manager of planning be appointed to the committee, alongside two citizens. It is also recommended the committee report to the planning and agriculture and rural affairs committees, which are chaired by Harder and Moffatt. Asked if he feels this formulation of the advisory committee

would serve any purpose, Jeanes said, “I don’t think so. It’s much more like a rubber stamp.” “Basically, there have been a couple of phases of downsizing advisory committees, reducing the number of people on the committees, reducing the number of committees, and reducing the number of meetings per year of the committees,” he said.

education

New school 1 of 3 French expansions A $25-million investment by the province will drive the expansion of French public and French Catholic schools in Nepean, Kanata, Riverside South and downtown, area MPPs said in an announcement on Oct. 28. Ottawa South, Ottawa-Orléans and Ottawa Centre MPPs John Fraser, Marie-France Lalonde and Yasir Naqvi gathered at Michaelle-Jean public school to outline three construction projects expected to break ground by the end of 2017. Of the $25-million investment in Ottawa, $13.4 million will go to the construction of a new French public high school in Barrhaven, near the intersection of Strandherd Drive and Fraser Fields Way. According to Linda Savard, chair of the French public school board, the school’s ground breaking will probably take place in fall 2017. It will hold 404 students, with a catchment area covering Barrhaven and Riverside South. Savard said schools within her board tend to have large catchment areas, since there are fewer of them in Ottawa compared to English boards. She said the need for a French high school in Barrhaven is undeniable, since the only options for French language students are attending a French immersion program in another board, or commuting to French high schools in other parts of the city. The rest of the Ottawa investment will be split between the construction of a new gymnasium and an addition for 210 students at De La Salle high school in lowertown, at $6.8 million. As well, an addition for 230 students will be built at Holy Redeemer Catholic Elementary School in Kanata for $5 million. While the construction of Barrhaven’s first French language high school will allow French speakers in the area to study closer to home, the expansions planned for De La Salle and Holy Redeemer are expected to reduce overcrowded conditions. The three projects are part of an initiative by the provincial government to build 28 new schools and expand or renovate 23 existing ones across Ontario. Over the next two years, the province will invest $2.7 billion in additions and renovations. Megan DeLaire/Metroland Media

Ottawa

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

payroll

Another deadline missed Ryan Tumilty

Metro | Ottawa

Tang has been diagnosed with kidney and heart disease, and his owner has created a GoFundMe page to raise money for his treatment after financial issues that began with the Phoenix pay system left her in the red. contributed

Phoenix backlog cuts deep government employment

Cat owner seeks public’s help after cheques, records stalled Adam Kveton

For Metro | Ottawa The way one Ottawa pet-owner’s luck has been going, you might think she’d crossed the path of a black cat. In this case, however, she says the problem arose because of the Phoenix pay system. Christina Kevins is the proud owner of three cats, but she’s recently had to put herself in debt to figure out what was wrong

with her orange-furred senior kitty, Tang. Now, after discovering her 15-year-old pet has both kidney and heart disease, she says she can’t even afford pain meds, and doesn’t know if Tang will have a heart-attack today, tomorrow, next month or next year. But that is just the latest in a string of financial problems Kevins has been dealing with, which she says all started with the problem-plagued Phoenix pay system. Kevins had a contract position with Transport Canada from January to May of this year, but she didn’t realize until much later that she was owed money and that, more importantly, her record of employment was incorrect. She discovered the problem

after being laid off from another contract position with Statistics Canada’s census program. “I went to apply for EI,” she said, but found her record of employment showed her Transport Canada contract ended a month earlier than it had, meaning she was entitled to $100 less a week. But it took Kevins so long to receive even that reduced amount that — struggling to pay rent while looking for a job — she went in a panic to social assistance. “You need to go on the list for subsidized housing, so just forget about your cats, forget about your apartment and go

live in a shelter,’” Kevins said her caseworker told her. “(Being told that) was honestly like getting shot in the chest. I’ve never had a more terrifying moment in my life,” Kevins said, adding that she has no family to which she can turn. Social assistance did help her out for September, but, as soon as she started receiving EI, she had to start paying back the money. “Now social assistance is sending me letters threatening litigation,” she said. Kevins is working two jobs now — one at a Halloween store and another with Nokia in Kanata — but said her existing bills,

I’ve never had a more terrifying moment in my life. Christina Kevins

accrued as she looked for those jobs and awaited help, take up just about all of that income. The money that the federal government owes her (which she estimates is around $700), will not help nearly enough. The incorrect record of employment is the real problem, she said. But Public Works and Transport Canada are no longer returning her calls or emails, said Kevins. With Tang sick, she’s turned to public donations for help specifically with veterinary bills. “My cats are my family,” she said. This year’s woes have been like dominoes, said Kevins. “It felt like a desperate whirlpool and I just took whatever job I could get and scrambled and scrambled and scrambled, and this is definitely not where I thought I’d end up.”

With the government’s selfimposed deadline having come and gone, there remain 22,000 people caught in the backlog of the Phoenix pay system. Marie Lemay, deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada, gave an update on the troubled system Monday and admitted the deadline to clear the 82,000 cases would not be met. “Despite our best efforts, we could not completely eliminate the backlog,” she said. “For employees, this is extremely frustrating and we desperately wanted to reach our target.” The new payroll system has lead to thousands of pay problems, with some public servants not getting paid Marie Lemay for months. Lemay said The Canadian the remaining press file cases are complex and often predated the introduction of the Phoenix system. She said resolving these complaints can take a lot of work. “The cases left in our backlog are complex and require timeconsuming manual calculations,” she said. “These types of cases require a fair amount of research.” She said in some cases it involved people who held acting or temporary positions. The government has committed to keeping the additional resources in place to clear the backlog. Lemay said, while employees are understandably frustrated, the situation is improving. “We’re getting better and faster and increasingly employees will see issues resolved,” she said.

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4 Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Ottawa

Museum to sink your teeth into food festivals

Lots to learn, and eat, on exhibit at this institution Haley Ritchie

Metro | Ottawa Food literacy might sound dry, but for the last five years staff at the Food and Agriculture Museum have turned it into an opportunity for festivals dedicated to ice cream and bacon, super food lectures, demonstrations by celebrity chefs and — coming this month — a hot cheese rave. The Canada Food and Agriculture Museum has a fiveyear plan to make you realize that agriculture means cheese, bacon and ice cream, and not just tractors and wheat fields. Located on the Central Experimental Farm, the museum, with its barnyard animals and outdoor activities, has always been a hit with young families.

When the museum asked why other demographics (teens, young adults and seniors) weren’t visiting, they found there was a mental disconnect between agriculture and food. “They were thinking of agriculture more as the process and technology and farming as opposed to what they were eating three to five times per day,” said director general KerryLeigh Burchill. Three years ago, the museum expanded, opening up a new learning centre and adding the word “food” into its name. “A lot of people that consider themselves foodies or would like to try some new things are visiting,” said Burchill. New events this month include a fondue party and an artisan cheese tasting. The finale will feature a DJ spinning tracks as guests sip wine and try out raclette, which involves melting cheese to add directly atop food. In May, the museum hosted a vegan-friendly Pulse Feast and during the Thanksgiving weekend, Kitigan Zibi chef

development

Condo proposed in Preston Square

People that consider themselves foodies are visiting. Kerry-Leigh Burchill

Cezin Nottaway visited talk about Algonquin cuisine and traditional ingredients. Burchill insists that even an event like Baconpalooza can encourage education about food and farms. “We really try to have a broad, umbrella perspective on food literacy,” she said. “With the example of something like Baconpalooza, we’re saying it’s great to enjoy bacon, but in moderation most of the time. “We also had a demonstration showing the different kind of meat so from a production perspective and we have a swine barn, so people could go in and learn more about the kind of swine breeds and animal welfare. These are serious issues and we don’t take that lightly,” she said.

A child enjoys a treat with his father at the Museum of Agriculture’s annual Ice Cream Festival. Contributed

Sakto Corp. is looking to increase offerings in its Preston Square portfolio, proposing a new 24-storey residential building on the site as well as a single-storey addition to its existing Adelaide rental property. Sakto’s present portfolio is heavily weighted towards office buildings. The new development would expand its residential real estate holdings with 175 new rental units in the 24-storey building and 22 additional units on top of its Adelaide property. The site, known as Preston Square, is currently zoned as a traditional mainstreet and mixed-use, and is bound by Highway 417 to the north, Aberdeen Street to the south, Preston Street to the east and Rochester Street to the west. The development requires zoning changes as well as an official plan amendment to proceed. The city says it plans to review the application and present its recommendation to the planning committee by January. Ottawa Business Journal

public safety

Violence leaves Carlington residents feeling less safe Carlington residents say they are feeling less safe since recent homicides in their community. At a recent community safety meeting at the Alexander Community Centre, about 100 people gathered to hear from police, Ottawa Community Housing and the Carlington Community Health Centre, and raise concerns they have about safety.

River Ward Coun. Riley Brockington organized the Oct. 27 meeting in response to recent violent acts in the community, including the homicide of Abdi Jama outside Suya Spot restaurant on Sept. 25, and a fatal stabbing on Rosenthal Avenue on Oct. 6. There was also a homicide on Lepage Avenue in May and a shooting on the same block

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on Oct. 5. “I feel less safe than I did a few years ago,” said Marg Nix, who lives on LaRose Avenue. Marguerite Dehler, who lives on Hooper Street, where there was a shooting in April, said she’s been all but told to “piss off ” by the call centre when reporting suspicious activity on her street. Others, who said they feel police and dispatchers aren’t

taking their concerns seriously, echoed that response. Concerns about poor lighting, overgrown pathways and other hazards in the community that don’t make it feel safe were also raised. Brockington noted sections of the community could benefit from a safety audit where working groups canvas the neighbourhood during the day and night to identify

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concerns, including the area just outside the community centre. But according to residents at the meeting, that’s already been done and no changes were made. Nicholas Trudel, who is part of the community’s Neighbourhood Watch, told the crowd the trend toward serious crime in the area isn’t comforting.

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Brockington acknowledged recent challenges, including the homicide next door to the community centre, and said they aren’t new to the community, but have evolved. He urged residents to call police, so that statistics are accurate and police can deploy the share of resources that Carlington needs.

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6 Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Canada/Business

Immigration goals ‘anti-climactic’

federal government

Keeping levels at 300,000 disappointing for many Ottawa will bring in the same number of immigrants in 2017 as it did in 2016, despite calls from think tanks, the corporate sector and advocacy groups to admit substantially higher numbers of newcomers. The news of the plan to keep the immigration level at 300,000 on Monday was a bombshell to many after a summer of public consultations where Immigration Minister John McCallum had repeatedly hinted at “substantially” boosting the number of immigrants and rolling out multiyear targets to manage immigration. The new plan represents a higher target for economic immigrants from 160,600 in 2016 to 172,500 in 2017, and for family reunification from 80,000 to 84,000 — at the expense of the admission of refugees from 55,800 to 40,000. At least two national interest groups recently recommended the government increase immigration amid Canada’s aging population and low birth rate, to sustain the country’s economic growth and support its strained

health-care and pension systems. twice as high in 2015 but not as “This is almost anti-climac- high as 2016.” tic. With all the buildup and With the current immigration rumours, not much is done,” system plagued with backlogs said Toronto immigration law- and long wait times, a higher yer Chantal Desloges, who called target would have required more the government decision a “safe, resources for processing applicaconservative choice” to avoid tions, not to mention money for anti-immigrant backlash among newcomer settlement programs. voters. “In politics, you can’t always Added Debbie Douglas of the please everybody,” said McCalOntario Council of Agencies Serv- lum. “There may be some who ing Immigrants: “We are all sur- are disappointed, some not. All prised. … There appeared to be I am saying is the 300,000 lays a consensus even among the the foundation for future growth. bureaucracy that we needed We are making it a permanent base.” to increase the target to at least Kareem El1 per cent of the Assal, a research population.” associate with In politics, you The Liberal the Conference can’t always government’s Board of Canada, 2017 immigra- please everybody. said the 300,000 tion target will target has been Immigration Minister keep the immithe highest imJohn McCallum gration level in migration level check at 0.86 per for the country cent of the population. since 1913 and it shows the gov“What we did was from 2011 ernment’s will to exercise cauto 2015, we took in an average tion in preparing the system of 260,000 immigrants. Then we to ensure it has the capacity to jumped to 300,000 because of the absorb more immigrants. Syrian refugees. It wasn’t perma“We need to be patient. This is nently funded,” McCallum said. the first full year of the govern“What we’ve done now is we ment’s mandate. We have three set the 300,000 target for 2017 as more years to go,” El-Assal said, the foundation from which we adding that the target paves the can grow immigration in the fu- way for Canada to raise the level ture. We shifted the composition to 1 per cent of the population a bit with more emphasis on eco- by 2030 as urged by the confernomic immigrants. Refugees are ence board. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

Dracula’s castle The spookiest of nights Canadian brother and sister Robin and Tami Varma passed Halloween night curled up in red velvet coffins in the Transylvanian castle in Bran, Romania that inspired the Dracula legend. It is the first time in 70 years anyone has spent the night in the gothic fortress, after they bested 88,000 people who entered a competition hosted by Airbnb to get the chance to dine and sleep at the castle. Vadim Ghirda/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Business

Meal delivery services scaling back

Meal delivery has been a trendy business idea, with food companies using mobile technology to create opportunities. But some start-ups have recently found that it’s the old-style challenges that have proven to be stumbling blocks. Last month, in a blog post on its website, delivery service Feast announced that it would stop its delivery service in Toronto. In early October, Uber Eats stopped its instant lunch delivery service, and in September, Just Eats tweaked some of its delivery boundaries “I love the delivery concept, but I couldn’t see the economics working,” said Feast CEO Steve Harmer. His company used bike couriers to deliver healthy, chefprepared meals from its commissary kitchen on the east side of downtown Toronto. The company served more than 60,000 meals during its 10-month run, and got good reviews for both its app and its food, but it’s now focusing on catering and wholesale. “We got a lot of positive response on the experience,” said

Feast, a delivery service in Toronto, Ont., hasn’t made it to a second winter. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

Harmer. But when he did the math of the average order size, the number of orders per day, and potential growth compared with the cost of delivery, “it was just hard to see an easy path to profitability.” As a result, the company laid off 12 people from its delivery team. Other factors played a role, according to Harmer, including consumer habits in Toronto as compared to New York or San Francisco, particularly around lunch, as well as what customers feel is a fair price for delivery. Uber Eats’ decision to stop its

Instant Delivery points to similar findings. The service appeared popular during the summer, when the company didn’t charge a delivery fee as it tried to convince people to try the service. The company has not commented on its decision to shut down Instant Delivery in several markets. However, it did announce last month that in certain U.S. markets, Uber Eats will now also have surge pricing — higher-priced rates during inclement weather or where other issues arise — similar to Uber’s ride-sharing app. Just Eats is the market leader

and the only national player, and even it is tweaking its delivery zones, with a notice on its website warning users the area may have recently changed. According to Canadian marketing director Aaron Davis, the company wants to guarantee consumers free or a $3 delivery charge, which is lower than most of the competition. Wider delivery areas cost more, both in gas and customer satisfaction. “We constantly look at our delivery zones for those restaurants that we do manage delivery for,” said Davis. “We want to make sure people aren’t waiting 80 or 90 minutes for their food.” While just-in-time delivery (like Feast and Uber Eats) and on-demand delivery (like Just Eats) were once hot, now it is meal delivery kits and services that are surging. These services either provide boxed meals or food that requires minimal effort to finish off before eating. Projections show that this market will grow from $3 billion to $5 billion (U.S.) by 2020. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE

Montreal

Police tracked journalist’s iPhone, La Presse says A Montreal journalget the phone numist whose iPhone was bers for all Lagace’s inmonitored by police coming and outgoing for months says he texts and calls, while was outraged to disanother allowed them cover he’d been “spied to track the phone’s on” as part of what he location via its GPS calls an effort to idenchip. tify his sources. The surveillance “I was living in the was ordered as part fiction that police offi- La Presse of an internal probe cers wouldn’t dare do journalist Patrick into allegations police that, and in the fiction Lagace anti-gang investigators that judges were profabricated evidence. Five police officers were artecting journalists — and hence the public — against this type rested this summer and two of police intrusion,” La Presse were charged as a result. Lagace said police told him columnist Patrick Lagace said in an interview Monday. they obtained the court-author“Clearly, I was naive.” ized warrants because they beThe French-language news- lieved the target of one of their paper said it learned at least investigations was feeding him 24 surveillance warrants were information. issued for Lagace’s phone this But he said the story in quesyear at the request of the po- tion was actually first reported lice’s special investigations unit. on by a competitor, leading That section is responsible for him to believe the investigation looking into crime within the was actually a thinly veiled atpolice force. tempt to learn the identity of Three of those warrants re- his sources within the police portedly authorized police to department. THE CANADIAN PRESS

World

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Natural disaster

Italian ‘town is dead and buried’ Residents of a mountainous region of central Italy displaced by a series of powerful earthquakes resisted relocation Monday and appealed for campers and tents so they could remain close to their homes and businesses. The latest quake on Sunday morning — with a magnitude 6.6, the strongest to hit Italy in 36 years — caused no deaths or serious injuries, largely because most vulnerable city centres already had been closed due to previous damage and many homes vacated. But it did complicate relief efforts in a fragile zone still coping with the aftermath of an August earthquake that killed nearly 300 and a pair of damaging aftershocks last week. Civil protection officials said the number of people needing housing has risen by 15,000 since Wednesday, a figure that does not include the 2,000 who remained displaced from the August quake.

Although thousands already have been moved to coastal regions out of harm’s way, a growing number of quakestricken communities are insisting on staying put. They say they have businesses to tend to, not infrequently involving livestock, or think that if their homes are still standing they remain the safest place to be. On Monday, some 20 people remained in the hilltop town of Castelluccio, which aerial video shot by Italian firefighters show was all but razed on Sunday. The town is famous for its lentils and its spectacular display of wildflowers, and the residents who stayed behind include farmers and shepherds sharing a camper and two containers they organized themselves, according to the news agency ANSA. “This town is dead and buried,” Adorno Pignatelli told ANSA. “But we will continue to grow flowers because we won’t let it die definitively.” THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Middle east

Iraqi forces poised on edge of Mosul Iraqi special forces stood poised to enter Mosul in an offensive to drive out Daesh militants after sweeping into the last village on the city’s eastern edge Monday while fending off suicide car bombs without losing a soldier. Armoured vehicles, including Abrams tanks, drew fire from mortars and small arms as they moved on the village of Bazwaya in an assault that began at dawn, while artillery and airstrikes hit Daesh positions. By evening, the fighting had stopped and units took up positions less than a mile from Mosul’s eastern border and about

5 miles (8 kilometres) from the centre, two weeks into the offensive to retake Iraq’s secondlargest city. “We will enter the city of Mosul soon and liberate it from Daesh,” said Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil of Iraq’s special forces. He added that more than 20 militants had been killed while his forces suffered only one light injury from a fall. Iraqi forces have made uneven progress. Advances have been slower south of the city, with government troops still 35 kilometres away. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mie Larson, left, and Cheryl Conley-Strange are part of a group of a dozen Canadians headed south to help the Democrats in Florida. Contributed/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Canadians head south to work on U.S. election U.S. ELECTION

A dozen women help out in crucial swing state A dozen Canadian women are heading to Florida on a mission unrelated to sun, surf and sand — they intend to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump. They’re bunking in a pair of houses that will serve as temporary campaign dorms for the travelling Canucks, as they knock on doors and make calls in what’s arguably the most important region of the most important swing state in the U.S. election. ”We didn’t come here to have

a holiday — we’re here to work,” said Cheryl Conley-Strange. She knows from experience. The Winnipeg woman has worked every federal Liberal campaign since 1979, when she was a poll captain for future foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy. She’d intended to retire from organizational work after the federal election, satisfied with the state of her party. But she figured she had one more campaign in her. Conley-Strange chatted with friends about helping political allies in the U.S.: ”I started saying to them, ‘Hey, why don’t we go down to the States and help (the Democrats)?’” She suggested staying at her family’s winter home in central Florida. So many people took her up on the idea that they wound up getting a second

We didn’t come here to have a holiday — we’re here to work. Cheryl Conley-Strange

place in the same Kissimmee neighbourhood. She’d bought in that location a few years ago — she liked the proximity to Disneyworld. It also happened to be on rich electoral soil. She only realized recently that Central Florida is considered the swing region of the biggest swing state. It’s sandwiched between Florida’s solidly Republican north and solidly Democratic south. And it has tens of thousands of new

available votes. An influx of Puerto Ricans is having a ripple-effect on the politics in this area, and therefore on the country. These new residents are eligible to vote immediately, as Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. They tend to be more liberal than the state’s Cuban voters. And their ranks are growing to rival the Cubans. Conley-Strange came in September to meet Democratic party organizers; help set things up for the arrival of her friends; and make calls to register voters. Her friends arrive over the coming week. The one thing Canadians can’t contribute to this election is money. “I asked (the Democrats) if I could buy a T-shirt,” she said. “They said no.” THE CANADIAN PRESS

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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Your essential daily news

Emma TEITEL on columnists run amok

It’s time to retire Badge 666

Luckily there exists a method to mask a shortfall of original opinions: The ‘Blame-PoliticalCorrectness-Strategy’ I’m going to let you in on a trade secret. Many of us who get paid to “weigh in” on the news for a living run out of ideas on the regular. I call this “opinion fatigue” and when I suffer a particularly hairy bout of O.F. (roughly three times a week), I make like a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: I phone a friend. And I plead: “I’m out of opinions. Do you have any? I’ll take anything: Euthanasia, bad breath, bad dry cleaners, the economy . . . anything.” In fact, at least a third of my opinions aren’t really mine at all. They belong to my friend Travis. (Thanks, Trav). But what is a brain-drained columnist to do when she runs out of friends and family to pester for fresh content? Luckily there exists another equally effective method to mask a shortfall of original opinions — one employed by columnists far and wide: the “Blame-Political-CorrectnessStrategy.” Here’s how BPCS works. Step 1: Google “political correctness run amok.” Step 2: From the 80,000-plus Google entries that immediately appear, select the most current incident of hypersensitivity on a liberal arts campus you can find (“Yoga banned on account of cultural appropriation!” “Woman triggered by salami sandwich!”) Step 3: Immediately proceed to write a column proclaiming, with righteous indignation, that as a direct result of one or two such incidents, freedom of expression, as we

For every sliver of ‘safe space’ on a campus, there are about a hundred others where anything goes.

know it, is in peril. Why am I revealing the BPCS secret to you now? Well it just so happens that BPCS is especially popular among pundits and column writers at this juncture. Why? Because Halloween is upon us, and with Halloween comes all manner of offensive costumes, from the blatantly racist (blackface) to the blatantly tasteless (Caitlyn Jenner) to the truly horrifying. And where there are offensive costumes, there are also offended university students who want to ban them. Enter BPCS.

specifically, costumes that mock rape, suicide, gender identity and costumes that appropriate other cultures — à la “traditional or religious headdresses”— are off limits. To his credit, Chris Green, general manager of the school’s students’ union, acknowledges that policing the policy is “not an exact science.” You can say that again. When I asked Green how the inexact part of the policy surfaces, he said that just last year (when the same policy was in place) a guy showed up to a students’ union Hallow-

HALLOWEEN HORROR? For every sliver of “safe space” on a university campus, there are about a hundred others where anything goes — like offensive Halloween costumes — Emma Teitel writes. Costume Supply Centre

To illustrate, very recently the student union at Brock University in St. Catharines announced a prohibition on offensive Halloween getups at its student union events; and already the anti-political correctness punditry machine has begun spitting up outrage. News of Brock’s costume ban made its way into nearly every major paper in the nation this month, and Breitbart, the conservative news giant in the U.S., wrote a scathing critique of Brock’s “twisted” PC “illogic.” The Brock University Students’ Union justifies its position this way: “People’s identities are not costumes.” More

een event in what looked like “Rastafarian” garb. The union, wondering if the costume was appropriative, asked the man about his outfit. And what do you know: The guy revealed that it was in fact, a costume derived from his own heritage.” So, it turned out, in an awkward bit of irony, that the would-be protectors of marginalized identities were, for a moment, the ones doing the marginalizing. I hate to say anything nice about Breitbart, but they aren’t entirely wrong to call such a costume policy illogical. However, where Breitbart and other media outlets are

Collins’ capital

Steve Collins

wrong is in their rabid, if implicit, assertion that such a policy is newsworthy at all. Yes, Brock is overreaching, but it and so many campus policies like it are extremely small potatoes. According to Green, the costume prohibition at Brock applies to just two weeknight Halloween parties run by the students’ union, at a bar on campus. One of those parties, he says, “is a dry event” (in other words, probably not the first choice of someone who likes to push the boundaries of taste, anyway). The students’ union then is not walking dorm to dorm and house to house policing student costumes. If someone wishes to dress up as Caitlyn Jenner or Bill Cosby, house parties and other bars abound where he is free to be his most distasteful self. That’s the thing about the anti-political correctness argument as it pertains to university campuses. Nine times out of 10 the PC demand at hand is much ado about nothing. Because for every sliver of so-called “safe space” on a university campus, there are about a hundred others where anything goes — spaces where you can go about your day oblivious to the sensibilities and jargon of the far, far left and nobody will bat an eyelash. Spaces where no one checks his privilege or his offensive costume at the door. So the next time you read an outraged column warning that freedom of expression is in decline, and that 10 years from now you will be living under a politically correct caliphate — remember this column, and read between the lines: Nothing is in decline besides a writer’s ability to conjure up fresh ideas on a slow news day. Emma Teitel is a national affairs columnist with Torstar News Service.

Suspicious activities are a pastime of mine, like exploring areas of the city I’m not specifically permitted in. Last Sunday, after a sunny stroll west across the Adawe Crossing bridge into Strathcona Park, I wondered how much of the trip to Cummings Bridge on Montreal Road I could make along the narrow west shore of the Rideau River. The early part of the trip brought me behind the metal barriers and security cameras of the Russian embassy. Circumnavigating the imposing Cold War relic, however, was easy compared to the coming gauntlet of seawalls, thick foliage and fences protecting the riverside condo and apartment buildings from my trespasses. Eventually left with no way forward along the river, I had to fumble back up to the street, wearing a grass stain and a few burrs for my troubles. At the back of my mind was how I’d explain this little lark if someone saw a grown man making his way through backyards and bushes and called the cops. But a quick glance up the page at my photo shows one thing I probably didn’t have to worry about: Would the colour of my face potentially render my activities more suspicious to police? Last week, the police board considered the results of the Traffic Stop Race Data Collection Project, which found that Middle Eastern and black drivers are 3.3 and 2.3 times more likely, respectively, to be

pulled over by Ottawa police. They are also disproportionately likely to be stopped for “suspicious activity,” as opposed to a specific offence, and sent on their way with no further action, raising questions about the validity of the stop. The study’s authors were careful not to make any claims that their data necessarily document racial profiling by police, but we could certainly call it suspicious activity. This two-year project, remember, did not start as a proactive attempt by the Ottawa police to examine and correct possible biases, but as the settlement of a human-rights complaint. In 2005, police pulled Chad Aiken over in his mother’s car, and, he alleged, harassed and assaulted him. “I believe that the only reason I was stopped was because I was racially profiled,” he complained to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. “I was an 18-year-old African-Canadian male, driving a Mercedes Benz, with four other racialized youth as passengers”. Aiken’s girlfriend recorded him demanding one officer’s badge number. “666 is my badge number,” came the reply. It was not the finest moment in the sometimes touchy relationship between our police force (composed of about 10 per cent racial minorities, according to a 2012 workplace census) and the citizens they work for (about 20 percent racial minorities, says StatsCan). Encouragingly, this study is not the last word but the first. Police and researchers will hold a public panel discussion on its findings Nov. 24. It’s long past time we retired Badge 666. Philosopher Cat by Jason Logan

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Your essential daily news exercise

He recovered a personal training career out of injury For Jeremy Fernandes, a love of fitness started back when he played sports in his youth — and it’s translated into a full-fledged personal training career. With a kinesiology degree from the University of Western Ontario and Precision Nutrition Level II certification under his belt, the 27-yearold personal trainer at Body + Soul Fitness in North York, Ont., brings his well-rounded background to the gym. Now, he’s offering some athome workout tips anyone can use in their fitness routine. Fernandes also stopped by the Star office to give us the lowdown on his approach to personal training, his top celeb fitness trainer inspirations, and which workouts he thinks are totally over-hyped: What sparked your love of fitness? Being perpetually injured playing sports when I was younger and never knowing why I got hurt. I pulled my hamstrings, glutes and quads playing soccer. At 12, I tore both my ACL and MCL. My doctor told me it was “growing pains.” One day, a referee pulled me out of a game because I was limping. After that, I went to physiotherapy, and eventually I started thinking about a career in

Hilary Duff ‘so sorry’ for controversial Halloween costume

‘Growing pain’ was Jeremy’s gain

While studying kinesiology, I learned how to train properly. Jeremy Fernandes

biomechanics, anatomy, physiology, and break it down into a way that a layperson can understand. Is there a certain type of trendy workout that you think is totally overrated? It’s all context-dependant. I don’t think going to a yoga class three times a week constitutes strength training. At some point, you need to see progression — and there aren’t a lot of opportunities to progress in yoga, pilates, or ballet barre classes. But there’s no methodology I really hate.

Jeremy Fernandes is a personal trainer at Body + Soul Fitness in North York. Torstar news service

rehab. While studying kinesiology, I learned how to train properly. I’d never done squats or deadlifts because of my knee pain — but I learned I had knee pain because I wasn’t doing any of those things.

Now that you’re a trainer, what’s your approach to personal training? I work with, generally, older adults — so 40-plus. They’re people who have a similar history to me: They’ve been physically active, they’ve

been sidelined because of injuries, and they want to feel better, get over those injuries, and incorporate fitness back into their lives. Are there any celebrity fitness trainers you ad-

mire? Eric Cressey is one, and Mike Robertson. They take an evidence-based approach. They’re all about strength, but they also take into consideration anatomical differences. They’re strong on

How can people stay motivated on a fitness routine? Set performance-based goals. Look to achieve something in the gym and train towards that, and don’t wait for motivation. The best quote I’ve heard about motivation is, “It’s a friend who makes plans with you and bails lastminute every time.” Setting performance-based goals gives you something to work towards. It could be setting a goal of one pull-up, or five body-weight push-ups, and once you’ve hit that first goal, it becomes infectious. Torstar news service

try this at home resistance band lat stretch The lowdown

Equipment needed: Heavy resistance band and an anchor (a pole in a basement or a fence post for instance). Repetitions: Eight to 12 per side Muscle groups worked: Lateral line

Anchor the band

Put your hand through the hole, palm up, and let the band cradle your wrist

Close your fingers around the band

Hinge at the hips

10 Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Television

Mackenzie Davis’ tech-heavy resume black mirror

Vancouver, B.C. native is landing strong and unique acting roles on big and small screens alike

It’s hard not to notice a bit of a nerd-girl streak in Mackenzie Davis’s technology-heavy resume. The Vancouver actress currently stars in AMC’s computer saga Halt and Catch Fire as a programming genius, appeared as a NASA technician in The Martian last year, and has a yet-to-be disclosed role in the upcoming Blade Runner reboot. Davis is also featured in one of the best-reviewed new epi-

sodes of Black Mirror, the British anthology series that skewers our smartphone era with its sometimes-alarmist look at modern-day tech anxieties. The busy actress recently spoke about finding strong female roles and meeting great expectations. You’ve got an impressive resume but I feel like for years people have been saying you are on the

verge of something big. It’s so funny when people tell you about yourself and you’re like, “That’s not really my experience.” My experience is just that I get to work on better and better things and that’s the mark of progress for me. It’s not this sense that, “Ooh, something’s about to happen.” It’s like, “Oh my God, I got to do this movie with this person and now I get to do this and

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I get to be in Black Mirror and Black Mirror’s my favourite show.“ It feels really lucky to be part of things that you really like. What draws you to Black Mirror? I just think it’s so many things. I think it’s so clever and it’s so dark and it’s really optimistic and it’s not just cynical but it’s cynical enough. And it causes you to look at yourself and your behaviour and things that you’re tacitly agreeing to all the time, and question what that agreement means and what signing away your life and what signing away your responsibilities for yourself over and over again (means) until you have something else taking care of everything for you. ... It really affects me and ... if I watch an episode I need to take time to think about it because it’s just a lot of introspection that goes on. Why is this the right time for Blade Runner? There’s a reason why Blade Runner has captured our fascination for so long. And not felt dated to return to it all. There’s something really enduring about both the aesthetics in the movie, which is such an accomplishment for that not to feel dated at all, and the story of the movie. It really continues to resonate with people 30 years later. As a fan, it scared me that they were making a sequel and as soon as I read the script I felt like completely 100 per cent on board and so excited about it and excited to be a part of this world that Denis was envisioning that’s both very faithful to

My experience is just that I get to work on better and better things and that’s the mark of progress for me. Mackenzie Davis, actress

the original and completely his own. He’s such an incredible director and what he’s made is really, really special. I’ve gone from being fearful of the idea of ruining the product to so grateful to be involved in this companion piece to one of my favourite movies. It’s great to see you play strong women comfortable with technology. Halt is amazing for that. I feel like they did it so seamlessly where it was never addressed to (co-star) Kerry (Biche) or I in any progressive way of: “Oh, you guys are going to be running a business — as women. Imagine that.” They just wrote a really great story and we played the characters. ... It also was so normalized because nobody made a meal out of it on set as though we were doing something really revolutionary. We just treated women as interesting as men and wrote their characters as characters first and foremost. And when it mattered that they were women we addressed that but most of the time it doesn’t matter at all. It’s just about the relationship between these two entrepreneurs. The Canadian Press

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Gugu Mbatha-Raw, left, and Mackenzie Davis star in Black Mirror. Laurie Sparham/Netflix

Entertainment

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

speaking out

GOSSIP BRIEF

Adele’s postpartum depression battle Adele has opened up about parenting, her struggle with postpartum depression and alcohol use in a new interview. The 28-year-old singer tells Vanity Fair she felt like she had made “the worst decision” of her life after having her son, Angelo, who’s now 4. She says she eventually had to spend some time alone in order to overcome her postpartum depression.

Adele also touched on cutting back on her drinking and quitting smoking. She says “having a hangover with a child is torture.” She says she used to be a “massive drinker,” but now only indulges in two glasses of wine a week. The comments are in the December issue of Vanity Fair, which hits newsstands Thursday. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Adele. The associated PRESS

Prince Harry’s latest romance started in Toronto Romance is not dead in Toronto, folks. Just ask Prince Harry. The Royal is rumoured to have fallen head over heels with actor Meghan Markle in the city in May; she was filming the law drama Suits and the 32-year-old Royal was in Toronto promoting the Invictus Games. Since then, Markle, 35, has posted multiple Instagram snaps of trips to London. Royal-romance-

watchers are pointing to a set of beaded bracelets worn by Markle that are very similar to ones Prince Harry regularly sports. Express cites a source who describes a “besotted” Prince who’s “happier than he’s been for many years.” The Daily Mail claims that Prince Harry was booked on a plane to Toronto on Sunday but was a no-show after news of the relationship broke. Veronica Saroli/The Kit

johanna schneller what i’m watching

Hollywood elite on grim reality of climate change

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Leo DiCaprio (right), a UN Messenger for Peace on Climate Change, produces and stars in Before the Flood. contributed THE SHOW: Before the Flood (natgeotv.com and Nat Geo Channel Facebook, until Nov. 6) THE MOMENT: The deniers

“There is as robust a scientific consensus for climate change and its human cause as there is for gravity,” Michael E. Mann, the Penn State professor behind the “hockey stick” image of rising temperatures, tells Leonardo DiCaprio, who produced and stars in this doc, directed by Fisher Stevens. Mann explains that a small handful of players, including Big Oil and Koch Industries (the world’s largest privately held fossil fuel company), finance an organized campaign of climate change denialism. They fund both scientist-pundits and U.S. politicians — half of the U.S. Congress, including James Inhofe, the chair of the U.S. senate environment committee — to block all bills that would deal with the problem. “These people... lead us astray in the name of short-term fossil

fuel profits,” Mann says. “What could be more immoral than that?” DiCaprio, a UN Messenger for Peace on Climate Change, spent two years traveling to five continents and the Arctic, talking to experts and filming evidence of climate change — from the shrinking ice sheet on the northern tip of Baffin Island, to the sinking island of Palau, to Sumatra’s dying coral reefs. The doc lays out the factual horrors clearly, and as they pile up, DiCaprio’s reaction is both pessimistic and urgent. At the end, a list appears of things we can do to re-stabilize the planet: Lobby your government to favor sustainable energy (wind, solar). Demand a carbon tax. To them I’d add, watch this doc and spread it around. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She appears Monday through Thursday.

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12 Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Health

Cranberries myth is squashed THE STUDY

Another folk remedy bites the dust. Cranberry capsules didn’t prevent or cure urinary infections in nursing home residents in a study challenging persistent unproven claims to the contrary. The research adds to decades of conflicting evidence on whether cranberries can prevent extremely common bacterial infections. The new study, published online Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, used rigorous methods and the results are convincing, according to a journal editorial. Health care providers who encourage using cranberry products as a prevention method “are doing their patients a disservice,” the editorial says.

The research included 147 older women in nursing homes who were randomly assigned to take two cranberry capsules or dummy pills for a year. The number of women with laboratory evidence of infection— bacteria and white blood cells in their urine — varied during the study but averaged about 29 per cent overall in both groups. Ten infections in the cranberry group caused overt symptoms, compared with 12 in the placebo group but that difference wasn’t statistically significant.

THE ADVICE

THE INFECTIONS Urinary infections lead to nearly 9 million doctor visits and more than 1 million hospitalizations each year. Men, because of their urinary anatomy, are less vulnerable, while almost half of all U.S. women will develop at least one of these infections in their lifetime. Symptoms can include painful, frequent urination and fatigue. Antibiotics are often used to treat the infections.

In a study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cranberry capsules didn’t prevent or cure urinary infections in nursing home residents. Mark Bugnaski/Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive Media Group via AP

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Sugar for kids’ migraines A new study found that sugar pills worked as well at preventing kids’ migraines as two commonly used headache medicines, but had fewer side effects. The results may lead doctors to rethink how they treat migraines in children and teens. It’s the first rigorous test in kids of two generic drugs that are also used for adults’ migraines, topiramate and amitriptyline. Both drugs reduce by half the number of days kids had migraines over a month’s time. But so did placebo sugar pills. The study was released online Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Skin patch for kids with peanut allergy A new study shows a wearable skin patch may help children who are allergic to peanuts by delivering small doses of peanut protein. The National Institutes of Health funded the yearlong study. It says nearly half of those treated with the patch were able to consume at least 10 times more peanut protein than they were able to consume prior to treatment. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

People who think they have a urinary infection should see a doctor for diagnosis and treatment, but avoid cranberry products “in place of proven treatments for infections,” according to the National Institutes of Health alternative medicine branch. The journal editorial says additional research is needed to find effective treatments. “It is time to move on from cranberries,” the editorial says. The associated press

study

Cholesterol test for baby may help What if a blood test could reveal that your child is at high risk for early heart disease years in the future, giving you a chance to prevent it now? A big study in England did that - screening thousands of babies for inherited risk - and found it was twice as common as has been thought. The study also revealed parents who had the condition but didn’t know it, and had passed it on to their children. Ninety per cent of them started taking preventive medicines after finding out. Researchers say the two-generation benefits may convince more parents to agree to cholesterol testing for their kids. An expert panel in the United States recommends this test between the ages of 9 and 11, but many aren’t tested now unless they are obese or have other heart risk factors such as diabetes or high blood pressure. For every 1,000 people screened in the study, four children and four parents were identified as being at risk for early heart disease. That’s nearly twice as many as most studies in the past have suggested. Dr. William Cooper, a pediatrics and preventive medicine professor at Vanderbilt University, called it “an innovative ap-

proach” that finds not just kids at risk but also parents while they’re still young enough to benefit from preventive treatment, such as cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Statins aren’t recommended until around age 10, but certain dietary supplements such as plant sterols and stanols could help younger kids, Urbina said. The study was led by Dr. David Wald at Queen Mary University of London. He and another author founded a company that makes a combination pill to prevent heart disease. The work was funded by the Medical Research Council, the British government’s health research agency. Results were published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers were testing for familial hypercholesterolemia, a genetic disorder that, untreated, raises the risk of a heart attack by age 40 tenfold. They did a heel-stick blood test on 10,059 children ages 1 to 2 during routine immunization visits to check for high cholesterol and 48 gene mutations that can cause the disorder. If a child was found with the disorder, parents were tested. One in 270 children had the gene mutations. tHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tuesday, November 1, 2016 13

Health

New study looks at Zika, mice and men fertility

Concerns raised about effects of virus on male testes Zika virus ravages the testes of male mice, sharply reducing sperm counts and fertility, says a study that raises a new spectre about its threat to people. Experiments found testes of infected mice shrank about 90 per cent by weight, while their output of useful sperm fell by three-quarters on average, and often more. Now it’s time to find out if Zika causes similar damage in

Don’t jump to the conclusion right off that this is definitely what is happening to the human. Dr. Anthony Fauci

men, experts said. “We just don’t know that yet,” said Michael Diamond of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, a senior author of the study. The virus is known to infect a man’s reproductive system and persist in sperm and semen, “so it’s in the right place,” he said. Diamond said he suspects that in mice, the damage is permanent. But mice are not men, and experts unconnected with the study agreed that it can’t be assumed that the mouse results apply to people. Shannan Rossi, who studies Zika in mice at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, noted that the researchers had suppressed the animals’ immune system defence against the virus. That’s a standard step in such experiments but it adds another level of difference from humans, she said. Zika, which is transmitted by the bite of a tropical mosquito, is such a mild disease in people that most who get it don’t even know they are sick. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, said

HEALTH Pregnancy and Zika Zika can cause serious birth defects if women are infected while pregnant, so health officials have been concerned mostly with helping women who are pregnant or about to become pregnant avoid the disease. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

the study alerts researchers to look for effects in men. “Don’t jump to the conclusion right off that this is definitely what is happening to the human,” he said. But the mouse finding is a “red flag you need to pursue.” The mouse results appear in a paper released Monday by the journal Nature. They show the virus attacks the anatomical structure where sperm are made and reach maturity. Testosterone levels also fell. The infected mice were able to impregnate females at only about one-fourth the normal rate. And in females that got pregnant, the number of fetuses was less than half of normal. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Zika virus ravages the testes of male mice, sharply reducing sperm counts and fertility, said a study that raises a new specter about its threat to people. AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File